“Me either, don’t worry about it,” I replied, returning to my feet, “what are you doing here?”

“They do yoga in the park on Fridays.”

“No, I mean in Manchester.”

“I live here.”

“Oh, for some reason, I thought you lived in Filey.”

“No, I moved here a few months ago.”

Kim looked extremely awkward, obviously not expecting to bump into me again. Was Kim the woman that James was speaking about? It must have been a coincidence, surely, but if it were, it would have been a pretty far-fetched one. It made me feel quite strange being told that I would meet someone in the future, and then, voilà, there she was. The whole thing made me feel really anxious, but I’d gone that far, and I needed to explore it.

“Listen, you are clearly on a bit of a health kick, but do you fancy going for a drink?” I asked.

“Er, sure. When?” Kim uttered anxiously.

“Now. I could use somebody to talk to.”

“Of course. I’d… love to,” Kim answered awkwardly.

We made our way through the park to a small bar on the opposite side of the road. I had been there once or twice with Harry after a previous long walk in the park before. It was typical for a bar in Manchester. It was very trendy and sold incredibly overpriced drinks. Overhead were exposed steel vents and lots of mood lighting, giving the place a very industrial yet modern feel. It was filled to the brim with hipsters and people in suits having working lunches. We sat at a table near the window, and Kim nervously looked at the drink’s menu.

“What can I get you, ladies?” The waiter asked.

“I’ll have a glass of Merlot, please. Kim?” I replied.

“An orange juice, please,” Kim requested.

“Yoga? Fruit juice? You really are on a health kick,” I jested.

“Alcohol doesn’t really agree with me.”

“That’s the point, isn’t it?”

I didn’t fancy myself as a body language expert, but never before had I seen someone look so awkward in my company. Kim had her arms folded tightly across her stomach and could barely look me in the eyes. I stared at her intently, but she remained looking down at the table. The drinks arrived, and she took a single sip when I caught her eye.

“You don’t look too comfortable, Kim. Is something bothering you?” I asked.

“No, I’m just like this.”

“Fair enough. How did you know Harry again?”

“An old friend.”

“From where?”

“Filey.”

I was starting to get a tad annoyed at Kim’s inability to hold a conversation, and her drip-feeding of information was starting to exhaust my patience. It was glaringly obvious that she holding something back. If James wasn’t a fraud, there was a reason he had led me here. I gripped my glass so hard that I thought it might shatter in my hand, but I kept the painted-on smile across my face so as not to scare her off.

“Do you want to elaborate on that?” I added hastily.

“We were friends back in the day, but we lost touch. That’s about it, really.”

“Sorry, but you seemed very upset at the funeral, way too distressed to just be an old, out-of-touch friend.”

I don’t know whether it was the content of what I said or the constant barrage of questions, but Kim stopped looking down at the table, and her eyes met mine with unexpected intensely. I could see she was finding the courage to say something. My patience returned, and I maintained eye contact until she was ready to speak.

“I loved him,” Kim blurted out.

III

THE LOVERS

HARRY - BEFORE

Should I ring the doorbell again? I don’t want her to think I’m some kind of pest. I checked my watch. She did say 8 pm, and I’d already waited an extra five minutes in the car just to make sure she would be ready. My palms were sweating. Why was I so nervous? Ringing this doorbell in itself wasn’t unusual for me; I’d been left standing in this doorway many times. But this time, the context was wildly different. We’d been friends for years, and I’d only recently plucked up enough courage to actually tell her how I truly felt. I heard fumbling behind the locked door, and my anxiety spiked. I started to incessantly rub my palms on the back of my jeans to dry them. I was expecting my date, but instead, her father, Malcolm, opened the door with an intimidating grimace.

“Ey up, Malcolm. Kim in?” I said with pseudo confidence.

Malcolm didn’t utter a word in response, and he just kept on giving me an incredibly menacing look. After approximately thirty seconds, just when it had become unbearably awkward, he started laughing manically and dragged me inside by the scruff of my neck. It felt like a silverback gorilla was tackling me. Malcolm had been a steelworker his entire life, and you only had to look at the size of his tattooed arms to know. There was no way I was wriggling out of his grasp; I decided almost to play dead as he swung me around like a rag doll.

“I can’t believe you finally grew a backbone and asked our Kim out! What took you so bleeding long?” He laughed. I couldn’t muster a response whilst he was bouncing me off the walls of their hallway.

“Hi, Harry,” a voice said from up the stairs.

Malcolm and I stopped our jovial skirmish, and I stared up at her. She was so beautiful; how I’d never noticed it, before recently, was totally beyond me. She was wearing a short, silky, floral-print dress that was so vibrant that it lit up the room as soon as she appeared. Her long, slender legs were finished in a pair of black high heels. Kim looked absolutely incredible, and she knew it. She swayed slightly as a huge smirk grew even bigger on her face in response to my obvious ogling. Malcolm’s grasp tightened on my neck slightly. He was about half a second from picking up my jaw off the floor himself. He finally released his grip and threw his arm around me.

“Hi, Kim,” I smiled.

“Are you ready? Or are you and Dad having a moment?” Kim joked.

“No, we’re all done.”

“You aren’t going out like that, love,” Malcom lectured sarcastically.

“Sod off, Dad,” Kim laughed.

“And you,” Malcolm said, turning back to me, “make sure you look after her.”

“I will,” I replied.

“Back before midnight!” Malcolm boomed as he walked into the sitting room laughing.

I’d met Kim at high school almost 15 years prior to our first date. What can I say? I’m a slow burner. I’d say I always fancied her at some level, but I was young and way more interested in chasing skirt than settling down with a girlfriend. Whenever I finally decided to act on those feelings, she always had a boyfriend. I assumed the same thing happened to her; the timing was just never right. When the stars finally aligned and we were both single at the same time, I took the plunge and told her how I felt. It sounds brave, I know, but I took the coward's route and did it over text message. Once I realised she felt the same way, we quickly decided to arrange a date.